While local authority spending on education, police and fire services is set to increase by around 7% in the next two years, spending on social services will only rise by 4%, according to CIPFA.

Overall spending by local authorities in England is set to reach £93.3bn in 2007/08, which is a 5.8% increase on last year, CIPFA said. Of that, nearly 75% is funded by central government grants.

“It is very easy to slip into generalisations about spending on local services,” said CIPFA chief executive Steve Freer. “In fact the latest statistics show significantly different trends between services. Education, police and fire have clearly been earmarked as high priorities. Social services stands out as a major service where spending growth is being much more tightly constrained.”